Pedagogical Practicesused by ESL Teachers in Teaching English As a Second Language To

Pedagogical practicesused by ESL teachers in teaching English as a second language to newadult immigrants

Background

Teaching English as a second language (ESL) to immigrants coming from non-English speaking countries has been a dominant topic of debate in policy arenas over the past decade in Canada because of its heavy reliance on immigrant populations to maintain a viable economy. Canada is a country that welcomes immigration with most people in Canada being/having been immigrants who came to Canada for different reasons. According to Statistics Canada (2006):

Immigration has played an important part in shaping Canada's population. Some immigrants came a long time ago and some recently. Today, immigration in Canada has a far-reaching impact on the country's population growth. It was responsible for two-thirds of our population growth in the intercensal period of 2001 and 2006 (p.1).

Canada is a bilingual country with French and English as the official languages but most of the immigrants in Canada came from countries that do not speak English or French as their first or second languages. These ESL learners may have other languages they speak before coming to Canada. Ontario Education (2007) defined English Language Learners (ELL) as:

[S]tudents in provincially funded English language schools whose first language is a language other than English, or is a variety of English that is significantly different from the variety used for instruction in Ontario’s schools, and who may require focused educational supports to assist them in attaining proficiency in English (p.8)

When these new immigrants enter into Canada, they face the challenge of learning a second language and trying to adapt to a new culture in order to survive and fit into Canadian society. British Columbia Ministry of Education (1999) noted that: “ESL students may arrive in their home schools throughout the year. Administrators, mainstream teachers, and ESL teachers need to maintain flexibility to allow for this continuous entry” (p.14). These new immigrants who often have poor English language literacy skills may also have trouble doing everyday things that we take for granted, such as understanding simple instructions, communicating with other people, reading sign post and bills, listening and understanding radio and television, news and instructions from a lawyer or probation officer, helping their children with school work and finding a job. Not being able to do these things has serious implications for the functioning of individuals and families (Literacy and Policing Canada, 2010).

Many of these immigrants coming from other countries have low socio economic status which might also pose a great challenge for them to go and learn English as a Second Language. Kashdan, & Barnes, (2011) noted that:

Many women are discouraged by their especially low status and others’ low expectations of them in those countries. Moreover, during the past two decades, many refugees and immigrants have been people of color… they are viewed as "minorities." They did not experience the discrimination concomitant with being minorities in their countries and they are often emotionally unprepared to understand and cope with the racial and ethnic discrimination they may face in this country. The experience has been profoundly depressing for many, especially people who are elderly, disabled, or those who already carry the possible stigma of low status (p.1)

These challenges, coupled with the fact that adults who have already learned and mastered a first language might find it very difficult to learn a second language, may discourage these new immigrants from learning ESL.

It is a known fact that children learn new languages faster than adults, so when these new immigrants come to Canada their children will easily learn and speak English while their parents are still struggling to learn the new language. Meister (2003) noted that:

[A]t the beginning all babies are equal and share the same possibilities for development. Growing up, they are facing different social, cultural and linguistic surroundings. They are losing their openness and thus develop differently. The open human brain becomes restricted by norms and the older a person gets, the more fixed his/her ideas become…children at a young age have the best prerequisites to acquire, for example, communicative competence in a foreign language (p. 36)

Thus, while it may be easy to teach children new languages it might be difficult to teach adults. The reason is because the adult human brain is fully developed and restricted by norms, cultural beliefs and the adult tongue has adapted to communicating and pronouncing words in the first language. This has accounted for the reason why many people who are learning to speak a second language in adulthood have an accent because they tend to pronounce words in the second language the way they pronounce them in their first language. Birner (n.d) explained the reason why foreignspeakers have troublepronouncing certain sounds:

People have trouble with sounds that don't exist in the language (or languages) that they first learned as a young child. We are born capable of both producing and perceiving all of the sounds of all human languages. In infancy, a child begins to learn what sounds are important in his or her language, and to disregard the rest. By the time you're a year old, you've learned to ignore most distinctions among sounds that don't matter in your own language. The older you get, the harder it becomes to learn the sounds that are part of a different language (p.1).

Trained ESL teachers are dealing with increasing political, cultural and social diversity due to increase in immigration which places high professional demands on them. Hoban (2005) noted that: “Teaching is more complex than it has ever been before. We need teachers who are more reflective, flexible, technology literate, knowledgeable, imaginative, resourceful, enthusiastic, team players, and who are conscious of student differences and ways of learning” (p. 1). It is critical to understand the pedagogical practices that the ESL teachers use considering the diversity, multiculturalism and interculturalism within this group and the numerous challenges that students bring with them to the classroom. Many theories are used to guide the teaching English Second Language which includes: behaviourist, cognitive, transformational, post- constructionist, humanistic and Krashen theories. In this paper, I am going to discuss Krashen’s theoretical approaches used in teaching English as a Second Language to immigrants, different pedagogical methods used in teaching ESL to this group and to make recommendations for improvement.

Theories used in teaching English as Second Language

Many ESL teachers have used different theories of second language acquisition to teach English as a second language. A theory is a statement, concept or idea that have been tested and proven to be true. A theory must be based on fact and evidence about a concept or phenomenon. It is important to note that theory is different from hypothesis because a hypothesis has not been tested. It can be defined as an idea, statement about a phenomenon that have not been tested or proven to be true. Although many people use theory and hypotheses interchangeably the two words have different meaning. VanPatten and Williams (2007) noted that: “A Theory is a set of statements about natural phenomenon that explains why these phenomenons occur the way they do” (p.2). Using this definition of theories, second language acquisition theories can be defined as set of statements that explain the way people acquire second languages. These theories of second language acquisition can be divided into deductive and inductive categories. McLaughlin, (1987) noted that:

Theories of second language acquisition can be classified according to different criteria. According to their form theories can be classified along a continuum with ‘deductive’ on one end and ‘inductive’ on the other. Theories following the deductive approach contain concepts and constructs that are assumed to be true without proof. These are the axioms of the theory. Laws of logic are applied on these axioms to obtain the ‘hypotheses’ of the theory. If these hypotheses are empirically supported then they become the laws and facts of the theory … Unlike the deductive approach, the inductive approach do not begin with axioms. Instead it is empirically based. Theoretical statements are formulated after a significant amount of empirical relationships have been established. Theories that follow the inductive approach formulate hypotheses based on certain empirical facts (pp.8, 9).

It is very important to note that apart from Krashen’s Monitor Model theory which is not restricted to empirically derived laws but rather they are based on casual statements and predictions of behaviour which can be tested or modified by research other theories of second language acquisition are classified as inductive theory. O'Malley and Chamot (1990) noted that: “that theories of second language acquisition can be placed along a continuum from inductive to deductive and that most can be positioned at the inductive end, with the exception of Krashen’s Monitor model which was developed more as a deductive theory ”(p.58). Many authors have (Diana 1992) argued that theories of second language acquisition emerged from cognitive psychology theories but it is important to note that some of McLaughlin’s work on second language acquisition did not depend on cognitive psychology for example McLaughlin 1987, Mcload and McLaughlin 1986, even though cognitive theories originated from information processing theory and research, they can also be seen or classified as inductive or deductive theories ( O'Malley and Chamot 1990). In this paper I will discuss Krashen Model theory theories of second language acquisition and some of the pedagogical methods used in teaching English as second language

Krashen’s Monitor Model theory

Many teachers who teach English as a second language use Krashen's theory of second language acquisition. Stephen Krashen is a professional in linguistics with specialization in the areas of theories of second language acquisition and development. Many of his research have focused on second language acquisition and bilingualism. This theory has been used by many researchers and teachers of second language acquisition. Payne (2011) noted that:

Krashen would appear to be a significant figure with a certain impact in the world of linguistics, as judged by measures such as his name recognition amongst colleagues and students, and his many publications and citation count. He has a certain resonance with a generation of school practitioners in England. However, he is also a very polarizing figure as evidenced by certain websites (e.g. Stewart, 2010). And his theories have attracted some quite strident articles (e.g. Gregg, 1984) (p.1)

Krashen theory consists of five main hypotheses:Acquisition-Learning hypothesis, monitor hypothesis, natural Order hypothesis, input hypothesis and affective Filter hypothesis (Krashen, 1987, 1988).

Acquisition Learning- Hypothesis

In this hypothesis Krashen explain that language acquisition can take place without the learner being aware or conscious of the learning or acquisition of the second language. This could happen exactly the way children acquire their first language, the child speaks or acquires whatever language the parents are speaking without anybody teaching them. This could be the reason why some scholars argue that children acquire languages while adults learn a new language but it is important to note that the ability to acquire a new language does not disappear in adulthood. Krashen (1987) noted that:

The first way is language acquisition, a process similar, if not identical, to the way children develop ability in their first language. Language acquisition is a subconscious process; language acquirers are not usually aware of the fact that they are acquiring language, but are only aware of the fact that they are using the language for communication. The result of language acquisition, acquired competence, is also subconscious. We are generally not consciously aware of the rules of the languages we have acquired. Instead, we have a "feel" for correctness. Grammatical sentences "sound" right, or "feel" right, and errors feel wrong, even if we do not consciously know what rule was violated (p.10).

When adults interact with people speaking a different language and stay with them for some time they will start acquiring the new language but they may not speak the language correctly or know all the grammatical rules but unconsciously they will begin to use or add the second language. What Krashen call in a “non-technical term “Picking up” a new language” (Krashen 1987, p.10). At this stage acquiring a second language is purely based on informal, implicit or natural learning. During the stage of acquisition the adult learner does not know the grammatical rules and will be making grammatical errors. After the acquisition stage the adult learner will start making conscious effort to learn the new language, the grammatical rules and he will start asking questions about these grammatical rules, all these can be achieved through formal training. Krashen (1987) noted that:

The second way to develop competence in a second language is by language learning. We will use the term "learning" henceforth to refer to conscious knowledge of a second language, knowing the rules, being aware of them, and being able to talk about them. In non-technical terms, learning “knowing about" a language, known to most people as "grammar", or "rules". Some synonyms include formal of a language, or explicit learning (p.10)

Monitor Hypothesis

Krashen tried to define the relationship between the acquisition stage and the learning stage and how one affects the other. The acquisition process helps the adult learner to speak or make utterances while the learning will help the adult learner to check, correct, monitor or edit their utterances. Krashen (1987) noted that:

[ A]cquisition "initiates" our utterances in a second language and is responsible for our fluency. Learning has only one function, and that is as a Monitor, or editor. Learning comes into play only to make changes in the form of our utterance, after it has been "produced" by the acquired system. This can happen before we speak or write, or after (self-correction) (p.15).

It is very important to note that some factors influence the monitor hypotheses. These factors include: time,focus on form and knowledge of rules. The adult learner needs enough time to think about grammatical rules, even when they have enough time they think or ask themselvesabout form, or thinking about correctness(Dulay and Burt, 1978). The adult learners also ask themselves do I know the rules and am I saying it the right way.

Natural Order hypothesis

Krashen proposed that learners acquire new languages in a pre-determined order. He opined that certain grammatical structures or parts of speech are acquired earlier than the others. This theory also suggests that second language acquisition occurs independently in a natural order which implies that teachers cannot influence or change the order of grammatical teaching method. Many scholars (e.g. Brown 1973) have reported that children acquiring English as first language acquired some functional words or what Krashen called “grammatical morphemes” earlier than others (Krashen1987, p.12). It is important to note that even though second language learners acquire some functional words or grammatical morphemes earlier than the others; the rate of acquisitions differs from one individual to the other. Krashen (1987) noted that: “Acquirers of a given language tend to acquire certain grammatical structures early, and others later. The agreement among individual acquirers is not always 100%, but there are clear, statistically significant, similarities” (p.12). Other scholars such as de Villiers and de Villiers (1973) confirmed Brown’s report in their own study for example, that words or items that Brown found that children acquired earlier where also the same ones the children in their own study were getting right more easily proving that for all the morphemes studied, the easier ones was acquired first followed by the difficult ones. Apart from children acquiring a first language, children acquiring English as second language have also showed natural order acquisition process even though they might have different first languages (Dulay and Burt 1975).

The question that comes to mind is do adults ESL learners show this natural order of acquiring morphemes. Many scholars have used different kinds of research to confirm that adults learning ESL also exhibit the natural order acquisition, For example, Krashen, Houck, Giunchi, Bode, Birnbaum and Strei (1977) and Christison (1979) used free speech, Krashen, SferlazzaFeldmanand Fathman (1976) used SLOPE test while Anderson (1976) used composition. Despite the different kinds of test the result of all the test confirmed that adults learning ESL also exhibit the natural order of acquisition.

Input hypothesis

The input hypothesis tried to understand how people acquire second languages and how people move from one stage of second language acquisition to the other. How can the language leaner move from the current knowledge level to the next level of competence? In this theory the current language level is represented as i and the next level is represented by i+1. In other words if the language learner is in stage 3 (natural order stage) how does he get to the stage 4 (input hypothesis). Krashen (1982) explained that: